


How to Be a Human Being

by peregrinefalcon



Series: The Last Meal [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Assassination Plot(s), Assassins & Hitmen, Aurors, Death Eaters, Double Agents, Gen, Good Slytherins, I guess they're kind of good, Intrigue, Murder, Revenge, Secret Organizations
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-05
Updated: 2017-09-14
Packaged: 2018-12-24 05:31:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12006078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peregrinefalcon/pseuds/peregrinefalcon
Summary: After Harry Potter defeated Voldemort in the Wizarding Wars, life changed drastically for all those involved; most adversely, for the Slytherins. Most were relegated to living half-lives in the shadows and to self-exile into the Muggle world, being unable to find neither employment nor belonging in the post-Potter Wizarding world. As a reaction to this state of affairs, a group of Slytherins thus rose to form a secretive Organisation known to the public as The Last Meal, especially tasked to execute rogue assassinations of the former Death Eaters who ruined their lives.How to Be a Human Beingis the first part of their story; it explores each assassin's individual personalities and motivations. However, as each character delves deeper into their narrative and role within the Organisation, secrets become uncovered, and people are revealed to not be who they seem to be. The conspiracy will be continued in part two,Out (of) Rage.----this started out as a birthday gift for fortesques.tumblr.com, but has grown into something larger





	1. Take a Slice

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pansystan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pansystan/gifts).



> 'Thus you shall not show pity: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.'
> 
> Deuteronomy 19:21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Got a shotgun in my pocket
> 
> \----
> 
> Pansy Parkinson, 'Nightshade'

Night was a good time for London. Yellow street lamps burned blearily into the dark, illuminating the silent buildings in a greasy light that slid right off their rain-eaten exteriors; red buses ground loudly against the looping black streets, their wheels sounding so much rougher in the silence; and the faded black of sky felt soft and heavy, like something muffling and concealing, so thick and blurry that even the stars couldn’t shine through and spy upon the unsuspecting world.

Which suited Pansy perfectly. She was mindful not to step out of the sticky shadows looming by the street lamps’ stringy rays of light, and the noise of late night traffic masked the sound her shoes made upon the pavement. The air felt tacky against her skin, and Pansy hoped that it wouldn’t rain before she got to her target. Peregrine Derrick’s voice crackled over the legilimency link.

‘Quit worrying, Nightshade. You’re close.’

If she weren’t working with Derrick, Pansy would have strangled him in a heartbeat. But after the war, snakes must stick together and retreat back to their pits, never to rear their heads in Potter-worshipping society; they could only bare their fangs in the dark and spill their venom into the gutters. Some life.

Of course, many erased themselves, adopted new names, returned to the world shining and happy like the sun that rises from its grave in the horizon. Others fled, for being in this country – where they lost and which they lost – as disowned children was too painful of a memory, and a new chapter had to be written. Pansy despised these people, cowards who couldn’t live with their own words, couldn’t admit to the guilt of their own actions, couldn’t stay true to themselves. Lies masquerading as humans, cowards covering their jaundiced bellies with dazzling brocades and shadowy vestments alike.

Traitors who left their own to suffer, for fear of their own comfort.

Then there were those who were left to live through the pain. Those who accepted the burden of their actions, those who shouldered the curse of their reputation, those who accepted the truth of the world they were living in. Those who were like her friends, Draco, Theo, Blaise, Daphne, and Astoria. Life was hard for them, but they did not hide from it. They understood the rules – you reap what you sow; and so they willingly ate their bitter fruits.

Then there were people like her. People like Peregrine Derrick, Millicent Bulstrode, Lucian Bole, Graham Montague, Adrian Pucey, and Cassius Warrington. There were the vengeful. To live a life of resignation, acceptance, or escape was not a life, they firmly agreed. A person must live their lives by their own terms; one must fight to claim what they had previously lost.

And they had lost a lot. Fame, family, friends, fortune,  _familiarity_. What was once their birthright had been ripped from their hands by the war, and they knew exactly who was responsible. Pansy came up to the house she was assigned to target. Her hand hovered preparedly over her wand. They knew exactly who was responsible, and they were going to make them pay – an eye for an eye.

‘Nightshade, do you have eyes on the target?’ Derrick’s voice palpitated through the connection.

Looking through the window, Pansy could see a figure rustling within the house. ‘Affirmative, Falcon.’

Pansy withdrew her wand, a sleek thing, a cold thing, and not the same thing she owned when she was in school. She was not the same thing. None of them were. Now Pansy was Nightshade, Peregrine – Falcon, Cassius became Angel … they were things stuck between human and shadow, existence and nonexistence. When she walked up the front doorsteps now, her shoes made no sound. Silently, she twirled the wand in her hand and traced the shape of an  _alohomora_  in her mouth. The lock clicked open. No, they were not human. They were ruination.

As she stepped through the door, Pansy considered almost amusedly how little effort this one had taken to break into; just a simple  _alohomora_. The aurors could have gotten this one, if they were clever enough to find it. Derrick’s voice buzzed again. ‘Don’t let down your guard just yet, Nightshade.’

‘Do you have a location for me, Falcon?’ She scanned her surroundings and found them typical – the room was only dimly lit by muggle lightbulbs, however the furniture was fanciful, familiar. The furniture was obviously dryad-work, with intricate nature motifs and the soft hum of forest magic that she could feel in her wand.

This was definitely a mark’s house. ‘He’s in the study,’ Derrick said.

‘Didn’t even bother to hide, huh?’

Derrick laughed, and it was a lightweight yet brassy sort of thing that Pansy never liked. ‘No, he never knew we were coming.’

 _How annoying_ , Pansy thought to herself,  _now he’ll get startled and put up a fight_.

‘That’s half the fun,’ Derrick said, and Pansy was instantly reminded of why she didn’t like him. She found Pucey a more compatible handler – he never uttered a single unnecessary letter, for one. But he was also on field duty tonight – Footprint was following another target.

Pansy waved her wand in a casting motion, and a pale blue film fell onto the room before her, draping it in an almost eery glow. Some places glowed brighter than others – warded and booby trapped. Pansy held out her wand as she moved forward.

The first impediment was the standard anti-intruder jinx, which Pansy removed with ease as instinctual as breathing. Its complicated layers of alarms, restraints, and jinxes used to frustrate her, but now it was the most predictable and commonplace of all spells. Pansy traced her way around it, disabling all of its protocols and functions, and it let her in as the house’s new mistress.

She effortlessly disabled a horn-tongue hex, an ear-shrivelling curse, and a jelly-legs curse. She couldn’t tell if her mark was being careless, overconfident, fearless, or if he’s simply given up. ‘It could also be a trap,’ Peregrine said, his voice suddenly serious. The brightness was gone from his demeanor and it made Pansy more alive for it.  _Finally, some gravity coming from Derrick_.

With a flick of her wand, Pansy nullified the finger-removing jinx from the doorknob. She wrapped her hands around the spell-cooled metal, and turned.

Immediately Thorfinn Rowle cast an entrail-expelling curse towards her and Pansy nullified it with a  _confringo_. She learned early on that casting a curse was more effective in blocking a spell than casting a  _protego_.  _A trap, then_. He raised his wand to cast again, but Pansy wasn’t here to fight tonight. She had other things to do. She was here to decimate.

‘Stop playing around,’ she said, and Rowle’s wand snapped cleanly in two.  _Incantations don’t matter, it’s intent that makes a spell_ , Millicent always said. Rowle looked at his broken wand in disbelief and, briefly, terror. He made a dash to burst out of the window to his left, but Pansy simply said, ‘You’re not going anywhere,’ and the ropes of an  _incarcerous_  bound themselves tightly against his thin frame.

The former Death Eater tripped and fell onto his face. Pansy walked over and turned him over with her shoe. He wore a fugitive’s face, thin and sallow, and his hair was long and heavy with neglect, pooling behind his head like an oil spill. Pansy felt disgust curl in her stomach like a slick snake. ‘What are you going to do to me?’ he asked, his voice weak and trembling like a candle flame in the dark.

‘I’m going to kill you,’ Pansy replied as she unhooked her knife from her belt.

They all had their different methods of going about it. Cassius, or Angel, was a merciful boy who simply used the Killing Curse. Millicent lived up to her name of Hellcat by stalking her marks and strangling or drowning them silently; she didn’t care to make a fuss. Graham, who was known as Cracker, hated to leave evidence so he usually blew up his marks. Like Millicent, Adrian, or Footprint, was a stalking sort of killer, who’d egg his marks into traps he’d set earlier – he hated to dirty his hands. Peregrine, or Falcon, was a furious and messy sort of personality; he preferred to deal with his marks on a more personal level, with fists and boots and Quidditch bats. And Lumos – Lucian – was a sly person who enjoyed leaking out information about his mark into the public, bringing their whereabouts to light, until terrified of this omniscient force, his mark would reveal themselves to the aurors, to be arrested and taken to eternity in Azkaban, where he would be far, far away from the light and from Lucian.

Together they were known as the Last Meal. It wasn’t a glamourous name –  _The Daily Prophet_  came up with it, the tawdry rag – but they lived up to it. They were a group of anonymous assassins, hitmen, and bounty hunters who took out the remaining Death Eaters at large. They took care of it simply because as figures who were close to Death Eaters, they knew their habits, their information, their contacts; and as victims, they were by far the most forgotten and unavenged group.

For who remembered the sufferings of Slytherin children at the hands of Death Eaters? Who remembers the expectations imposed upon them, onerous in their ‘or else’s and repercussions? Who else remembers the mental and physical torture of having to live under such intense fear, to live in the very heart of darkness itself? And watch it engulf you, a hungry demon, and slowly melt your resolve in the acid of its stomach? Who else remembers the life left behind for them? The ‘future’ that both ‘revolutionary’ sides fought for? Peace and prosperity only for those who chose the side of Harry Potter, disdain and forgetting for those who chose otherwise.

No, no one wants to remember the silent little snakes who daren’t speak up against their parents for fear of an Unforgivable cast upon them, no one wants to remember the fucked up kids who didn’t know how to deal with this except to fake their loyalty to their families. No one wanted to avenge their suffering, and no one wanted to demand reparations for their wounds. And so they had to do it themselves.

They had to hunt down these wizards and witches, and give them a taste of their own medicine. Pain, humiliation, fear, anger, helplessness … those hatchlings you stepped on have fangs too, they have venom too. And they remember you.

The Last Meal were more effective than the aurors – they had insider information, and they didn’t care for the political and social repercussions of their actions. They burned with a thirst for retribution and justice that society wouldn’t give them, so fuck the Ministry of Magic. Utterly useless as always, no matter who was helming the bureaucratic machine. The Last Meal realised that, if you wanted something done, you had to do it yourself.

‘Please, spare me … I’ll give you whatever you want … I still have galleons, and you can have this house, too …’ Rowle pleaded feebly beneath her. Pansy thought of the life she could have had. She and her friends living happily, all with the jobs they wanted, functioning members of society. She would see Draco and Theo smile again, and Daphne would shine radiantly beneath the sun instead of hiding in her house. Adrian and Terence would be playing Quidditch professionally like they deserve to, and Lucian would perhaps even join the aurors. Peregrine would be travelling the world instead of glaring holes at the walls all the time –

‘Stop wandering off and kill him already,’ Peregrine said through the connection, his voice dry and harsh with irritation. Pansy could imagine the expression on his face, as if he just had to witness something supremely stupid and beneath him.

‘Shut the fuck up,’ she said aloud, angry at Derrick’s dismissal. But he was right. There’s no point dwelling on what you can’t have. Dreams don’t come true for disgraced Slytherins.

‘Please …’ came the voice from underneath her shoes.

Pansy looked back at Rowle, her black eyes empty and her hair curtained around her face like a grim reaper’s hood. She didn’t say a word as she dropped her knife on him, the knife falling directly above his heart.

It sank in with a disgustingly human sort of sound, soft and squelchy and somehow like a sigh, but Pansy was used to it at this point. She’d lost count of how many Death Eaters she’s killed. She didn’t care to count in the first place.

Rowle’s face went slack, and it was even softer and inhumanly shapeless in death, like a sheet of melting wax over a skeleton.  _This is what fear does to a person_ , Pansy thought to herself,  _I won’t let it control me again, like it did before_. Blood pooled behind Rowle’s body, reaching out towards Pansy, as if looking for the culprit. She walked around his corpse and yanked her knife out. She wiped off the blood with a clean handkerchief, opened the study’s window, and whistled for a crow.

There was a rustling as the bird made its way over. Pansy handed the bloodied handkerchief to the bird, who took it and made off in the direction of the aurors. She then closed the window, and wiped her prints off of it.

She also wiped her prints off of the doorknobs on her way out. She closed the front door behind her with her wand. ‘Nicely done, Nightshade,’ Peregrine said.

‘I’ll be seeing you around, Falcon,’ she replied, and turned off their connection. She cast a  _tempus_ charm and saw that it was two in the morning. Although she should probably sleep if she were to wake up in time for tomorrow’s new assignment briefing, she was giddy with the high of the kill – less the pure rush of power you have over a someone else, more the intense relief of having wiped out another name on your ledger – and so she decided to grab something to drink as a celebration of sorts. Walking into the shadows, she apparated back to South London.

She popped into a 24 hours Tesco and purchased a bottle of gin. She fed Muggle money into the self-check out register, and left the store to return to her flat. It was a small one, but it was cozy and obviously lived in, not aloof and untouchable like the manor she grew up in.

As she opened the bottle and took a swig out of it – what’s the point of using a glass if you were just going to drink alone – her Muggle phone lit up. Did something turn up with the others? Was she being called as back up?

She picked it up and could barely believe the words being thrown into her face by the intense light of the gadget.

_I know it’s you whose been taking them out. – Harry P._

Fuck,  _fuck_  how did they find out? How did the aurors find out? Did Montague go overboard with the magic  _again_  and leave a magical signature? And how the  _fuck_  did they get her  _Muggle phone number_  –

Her phone flashed again.

_I’m not angry._

She almost scoffed. Like she gave a fuck.

_I want you to join us._

Pansy wanted to think that she couldn’t imagine that Harry Potter was offering her – or perhaps, the entire gang of the Last Meal – to join the Aurors. But this was a completely Potter thing to do.

 _Sod off_ , she typed back, and tossed the phone onto the table. She waved her wand and turned on the radio, and took another drink from the bottle.

There was a knock on the door that chilled Pansy to the bone.

 _I’m outside_. Her phone read.

Pansy put down the bottle, and picked up her wand. She set up extra defenses around her flat and herself, and adopted a dueling stance.  _Just like Potter not to back down_ , she thought. But she wouldn’t be intimidated into joining his gang. She’s had enough of that sort of pressure.

Her phone flashed again.

_At least let me join you._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, constructive criticism is encouraged and appreciated!
> 
> Come say hi to me on tumblr: durmstranqs.tumblr.com


	2. Season 2 Episode 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Don’t you need me, your baby boy?  
> ‘Cause i’m so happy without your noise
> 
> \----
> 
> Peregrine Derrick, 'Falcon'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Peregrine's narrative is not in strict chronological order; just a heads up since it may get confusing! Boy's a little all around the place

A flickering yellow-white light blinked to life in the grainy atmosphere of the night, thin and painful to look at. It lit a red circle in the dark with a gritty hiss, and then in another blink it was gone.

Peregrine slid the lighter back into his jeans’ pockets. He took a lethargic but deep, starved drag of a cigarette; the slowly disintegrating paper and scorched tobacco crackled as a bitter warmth ghosted its way down from the tip of his tongue to the bottom of his lungs. He leant backwards, until the hunched curve of his shoulder blades hit the rattling rails, and opened his mouth. The greedy pull of the cold night air coaxed the frosty-coloured vapour out of him, and it floated before him like the remnant of a bad dream, something that was supposed to be hateful but he was too drained to fucking care about, something that left him hazy and anonymous, uncertain of who he was.

His shoulders slackened and he flattened his back further against the rails. The evacuation of the smoke left his lungs empty, and the acute, cool city air filled him instead, filling his throat and chest, leaving his bones feeling chilly from the sudden invasion. His listless fingers brought the death stick back to his lips, and he closed his eyes to listen to the coarse rale of cinder again.

* * *

The empty soda can rattled like the mad laughter of an unfunny man as Peregrine kicked it down the deserted sidewalk. Another cigarette hung from his lips, quickly staling and fouling in taste, but he couldn’t be arsed to pitch it into the dark. Subconsciously his eyes flicker back up to the sky, but he can’t make out anything through the smoggy clouds of the city. He smiles bitterly, ironically, and it suits the dry, ashy taste in his mouth.

Boredom weighed him down like stones in his pockets, even though all he had on him is a packet of fags, a lighter, and keys to his flat. It hit him worst on nights like this, when there’s nothing to do but watch reruns of unrelatable television series on late night telly, and go out for a smoke to try and relieve some of that heaviness he always carried around with him, these days. It never works.

He considered perhaps calling Montague, putting on a lively tone and blathering some trite, furious bullshit into the receiver, but he was too tired to play charades tonight, even if he  _was_ bored; moreover, he’d left his mobile phone at his flat, on his IKEA coffee table, next to a half-eaten bag of crisps and his wand.

His aloneness felt particularly pronounced and pervasive that night, as he walked through Muggle streets devoid of Muggles, a strange land that was depressingly familiar to him. He did not like to reach out to any of his peers – for some reason he thought that they only saw the sardonic, turbulent Perry, filled with spurring outrage and grasping at solutions, aggressively and desperately hopeful. Not the silent, listless one who stalked through an empty London until his next kill, his next taste of fresh blood.

He never minded being alone, unless it was compounded with stifling boredom. Which was more often than not, these days. He felt a tugging yearning within his chest. God, how he wanted to fly again! To feel the Earth turn beneath his shadow, to follow those familiar paths of his favourite stars. But what a laughable thought.

A bird with clipped wings will never fly again.

* * *

Truth be told he wasn’t even supposed to mix with  _this crowd_. Both Peregrine and Adrian were just minding their own business; they wanted no business in this War. They didn’t want to fall in line with the rest of the Slytherins, to proclaim loyalty to that slimy old bugger Voldemort; but they didn’t love Potter either, a bloke who always came across as somewhat unreliable, managing to survive only thanks to dumb luck.

Moreover, none of Potter’s folk loved them. In their eyes, Perry and Adrian were still  _Slytherins_ , no matter how much Perry kept to himself and Adrian played nice. In the end, they were lumped together with the rest of the lot, Death Eaters’ children and fearful sheep; self-serving cowards and unthinking idiots.

All because they refused to choose.

A choice is not a choice if you are forced to choose.

Naturally, after the War no one wanted any business with them. With the amount of fucking whinging and mass regret pouring forth from the other Slytherins, Peregrine and Adrian’s accounts of neutrality were interpreted as remorseful retconning, and so they were also shuttered off from the new Potter-era of the Wizarding world.

It infuriated Perry in the beginning. After Voldy kicked the bucket, supposedly everyone was granted a ‘glorious future’; but the victors’ aggressive and  _specific_  version of the future dissolved the futures of nearly every person Perry had ever known.

Adrian and Terence – another boy who chose to remain neutral – lost their shot at the Quidditch industry. No university would dare admit Perry into their Astronomy departments. And when they tried to  _leave_  Great Britain, try their luck somewhere new – they had thought, perhaps, Italy – the Ministry promptly blocked their exit on account of ‘suspicious activity.’ Perry nearly killed the official who delivered the verdict; it made the situation much worse but it made him feel a little better.

His life became nothing. He found that he loved nothing anymore; for all he had loved had been taken from him. They took his stars away from him by denying him university enrollment despite his qualifications; they confiscated his broom license in case he tried to leave Britain through more illegal measures. It was still possible to purchase a broom through the black market, of course, but Peregrine did not have the money. After all, he was not a Malfoy, or a Zabini, or even a Nott, a Warrington, with a pile of gold sitting coldly in a Gringrott’s vault.

He moved to London where he could no longer see the stars in the sky, so they would no longer pain him. Unable to find a Wizarding job – fucking  _typical_  – he held several part time jobs in Muggle supermarkets and corner shops. As he worked through his day to pay for his rent in a godforsaken corner of the city, he simmered with a quiet, persistent anger, always fizzing and too hot if you tried to touch it – like a chippie’s fryer. On the way ‘home’ he usually had to chase down a cigarette with a beer to keep himself from going mad; but on particularly bad days he’d wander his way through some grimy Muggle club, find some nameless individual, usually someone with a saddening lack of self and self-respect, and shag his resentment into that worthless somebody. It didn’t make him feel much better, but at least it made him too tired to care.

What a laughable wreck had become of Peregrine’s life. As a wizard, he’d never felt more powerless; he felt like he had been drained of his magic, and shackled up in a nightmarish cage of an existence. Several times he sat at the roof of his miserable apartment building, letting his feet dangle along the edge, the gravity pulling tantalisingly at his toes. He’d never loved gravity, but sometimes it made an excellent case.

For some reason he never went through with killing himself. Too unsatisfactory of an end, he guessed; plus what would that really change? The world would still be shite, Potter would still be a god, and the real culprits would still be at large. It was only an easy way out for him. But just as he wasn’t a coward in Hogwarts, he was not a coward now, and he would not simply resign to the lot he’s been assigned in life.

One day, his old classmate Cassius called him on his mobile. Peregrine was startled at first by the ringing – it hardly ever sounded, really. To this day he still had no fucking clue how Warrington got his number. In that same, posh accent he had when they were both schoolboys, Cassius asked if Perry would like to have a drink. Since he had nothing better to do than watch reruns of  _Lost_ , Peregrine accepted the invitation and met Cassius in a more well-to-do part of town.

That’s when Cassius invited him to join the Organisation. Perry was incredulous at first – he could scarcely believe that someone had managed to engineer this sort of league, with a  _system_  of operation and mysterious but reliable intelligence sources on  _everyone_. ‘Don’t kid me,’ he said, but Cassius’ face remained as impassive and serious as ever, like it’d always looked when he was focused on making a goal in Quidditch. He wasn’t playing around.

Perry went home excited that night, his head dizzy with revelation, alcohol, and nicotine. He slept fitfully; and when he finally accepted that he was  _not_  going to fall asleep, he messaged Adrian and Terence.

Terry quickly rejected the idea, saying that he’d finally managed to work out a decent life between lying low and slowly redeeming his respectability, and that although it was slow work, he was not going to throw all of it away in order to kill some Death Eaters and get revenge. He looked ruefully at Perry, and turned away from his old teammate.

It was true. Terence always had something to lose. He knew the value of stability; he’d learnt his lesson through that shortened Quidditch career of his. Plus, it  _was_  an awfully tricky enterprise – becoming rogue assassins and taking out ex-Death Eaters is hardly a rational preoccupation, and it was not easy either. But at this point Peregrine had nothing left to lose – save for his sanity. Even if revenge could no longer save this mess that was his life, at least it would make him feel better; and that’s the best he could hope for these days. To just feel better. He told Adrian his decision, and left as well.

Cassius called him and invited him to their next meeting. When he looked through the door, Peregrine saw Adrian there, too.

* * *

The rest is history.

Peregrine could not remember how long he had been in the Organisation. It seemed at least longer than four months, but no more than a year. Time didn’t matter if you weren’t in a hurry to live or die; and he was doing neither. He existed in the limbo between the two states of being, watching the third episode of the second season of  _The X Files_ , ‘Blood’, whilst consuming basic sustenance in the form of a packet of Walkers.

Tonight was going to be the closest to alive he’s felt in a while. As Scully performed an autopsy on McRoberts, the dim screen of Perry’s phone lit up with a calendar reminder.

With surprisingly fluid movement for someone who had been watching television all day, Perry got up from the couch and dusted his himself off. He walked to his bedroom and pulled the thin, holey black t-shirt over his head and kicked off his grey sweatpants. He left his clothes in a bundle on his floor, and picked something else out of The Chair, on which he usually left his clothes after he did laundry – why pack it away in a wardrobe when you’re just going to take it out again, anyway?

He threaded himself through a black turtlenecked shirt, and donned a pair of slim black slacks. If he was going to be the last thing someone saw before they died, he wanted to look at least respectable. So they knew it was a  _Slytherin_  killing them, not some random sloven. He clicked the lights shut on his way out of the room, and closed the door behind him.

The time on his phone told him that he was still on time. He slid it into his back pocket. And although he didn’t usually rely on wand magic to do the deed, he still brought his wand; it was always a nice fallback, and he derived a small comfort from the presence of the stick of black walnut in his pocket.

Perry turned off the telly, and put out the lamp. He found his way to the door, and slid on his pair of 1461 Docs. No better shoe for kicking in jaws, he asserted. He then reached for the heavy beater’s bat leaning against the umbrella stand – it was a beautiful thing, shaped by the maths of aerodynamics, fine-tuned to the his touch and style, stained a rich colour by varnish and blood both. He swung the thing upwards, and rested it against his shoulder. The door creaked open in front of him, and Perry grabbed his keys off the hook he hung them on before he walked out his flat.

The door closed behind him, and the lock clicked shut.

* * *

Peregrine whistled as he walked down the dying streets. He was in a good mood tonight; he quite liked  _The X Files_. The city was spluttering on the embers of the day – people were all about to head home, kick back, and do something mundane. There were men dressed in suits walking hurriedly to the tube station he just passed, and one of him bumped into his shoulder – the one without the bat.

His brain crackled with the electricity of a legilimency link. ‘Falcon, can you hear me?’ Adrian’s voice sounded between his ears.

‘Loud and clear,’ Peregrine affirmed, a cheerful, almost agitated edge forming around his words.

‘Get on the Bakerloo line,’ Adrian instructed. Peregrine was already on his way over.

* * *

Peregrine sank into an empty brown seat on the Bakerloo train towards Elephant and Castle. The train rattled soothingly as they sped forwards in the darkness.

His mark tonight was Augustus Rookwood. He’d escaped from Azkaban twice – the last time during the mass breakout prior to the Battle of Hogwarts. A slippery bastard, this one was, but no one could escape Peregrine’s hunt.

He leapt off the train at Elephant and Castle, and sauntered into the night. He walked down the streets he had memorised in preparation, until he reached a nondescript ugly apartment building. This one knew how to hide – in the plainest sight.

Peregrine waved a hand before the lock – the equations and calculations in his magic finding just the right combination – and it beeped him in. With a little leap, he started on the staircase and wound his way up to the fourth floor.

The room he had been briefed on was labelled as the residence of one Mister Arthur Rook. Yep, this was him alright; seems like he didn’t put much effort into an alias, though, Peregrine snickered to himself. ‘Focus, Falcon,’ Pucey reminded him through the link.

Peregrine extended a hand and motioned at the lock. His fingers moved as if he were playing piano upside down; and the lock clicked to his instruction. Gently, it popped open, and Peregrine mimed a push; it creaked open more, and he walked in as if he owned the place.

Immediately, a barrage of defensive spells launched themselves at him, but he was more than ready. He looped his fingers through the mazes, rearranged the values into new formulas, and gently broke apart the spells. He didn’t even need a wand for the work; the math was always in his favour.

Politely, Peregrine closed the door behind him. He waved a hand through the air, casting a silencing spell on the entire flat. As the last shimmers of the spell faded into the darkness, Peregrine cupped his free hand to his mouth and called out, ‘Oi, you old fucker! Come out and get your due!’

There was a frantic shuffling sound in the back, and Perry snapped his fingers. The locks on the windows all jammed themselves together, grinding themselves together until the metal was deformed and impossible to break apart. Peregrine heard Rookwood curse, and he smiled, pleased.

‘I haven’t got all night, you know,’ he said with a touch of impatience. He had a morning shift the next day. He put out his hand again, and made a drawing motion; and the chicken-hearted Death Eater flew towards him, as if summoned by an  _accio_. Peregrine grinned maliciously, and slammed his fist into the face of the approaching Death Eater.

There was the unmistakable crack of bone straining and the soft, repulsive shift of flesh beneath his knuckles. Rookwood flew backwards and landed on his arse, whimpering from the pain and spitting out broken teeth. Peregrine walked over to him and loomed over the man, his feet wide apart and the bat still resting on his shoulder.

‘You can’t run anymore, you know,’ he told Rookwood coldly. ‘It’s time for you to meet your end.’

‘Who the fuck … are you … ?’ Rookwood managed through cracked teeth and a swelling cheek.

Peregrine let out a high laugh and slammed the toe of his shoe into Rookwood’s stomach. The man turned over and began retching dryly.

‘I’m your worst nightmare,’ he introduced himself, his voice growing more and more acute as the adrenaline flooded his system. He squatted down, and grabbed a fistful of Rookwood’s hair with his free hand. He yanked at it so the man’s face would face his; so he could look directly into the terror and desperation and the laughable, stubborn pride in Rookwood’s eyes as he said, ‘I’m the Falcon.’

Rookwood drew his wand from his sleeve and pointed it towards Peregrine, a curse taking shape on his lips – but Peregrine swung his bat against Rookwood’s hand, and it met with his wrist with a wet sort of crack. The wand clattered onto the floor and Rookwood doubled over again, a terrible scream ringing forth from his throat. Peregrine stood up again, and walked over to the wand. He brought his foot down upon it, and snapped it in two.

Rookwood was still screaming.  _What a baby._  Perry turned his attention back towards him, and made him slide across the floor to him. He couldn’t be arsed to walk back to Rookwood. ‘You’re going to pay for everything,’ Peregrine said as he made a mixing motion with his index finger, and Rookwood’s broken wrist did a nauseating 180-degree twist.

There were pathetic tears streaming down Rookwood’s face, getting caught in the ugly creases of his contorted face. ‘What have I done?’ He asked in a wheezing voice.

Peregrine cracked an unnerving grin. ‘You’re seriously going to ask me that question? You Death Eater dickwad?’ He dropped his bat and picked Rookwood up by the collar and pinned him against the the nearest wall. He made sure that his hand was pressed tightly against Rookwood’s windpipe, so he commanded Rookwood’s full attention. With a fell swoop Peregrine brought his knees to the soft spot under the edge of Rookwood’s ribcage and felt the organs rearrange themselves around him. ‘I’m going to make you pay for more crimes than yours, though,’ he promised, a wild edge to his voice.

‘Please,’ Rookwood began to plead, but Peregrine brought his fist to Rookwood’s face again and dislodged his jaw with a right hook. He’d heard enough of the fucking guy. Rookwood screamed, but Perry wasn’t listening. Everyone keeps saying the same things these days, don’t they?

Peregrine swung Rookwood around, and threw him against the glass coffee table. The weight of the toss shattered the glass and Rookwood fell through, his limp form hanging loosely upon the black metal frame. The floor was quickly darkening underneath his body. Peregrine only had so much time left to have some fun.

Deliberately, he ambled over, the rubber soles of his Docs squeaking against the slick floors. He watched the twitching man, coughing and spluttering and crying like some sort of disgusting, inhuman  _thing_.  _Finally, the appearance matches the spirit_ , Peregrine thought as he watched Rookwood impassively, cold rage taking over his previous elated fury.

‘Just finish it so we can go home,’ Adrian said.

‘Shut the fuck up,’ Peregrine said, aloud.

Rookwood looked up at him, bloodshot eye-whites and blue irises stark against the dark blood. He wheezed in a fashion that sounded like a pitiful attempt at ‘please,’ but Peregrine never reserved mercy for anyone.

Why should he be merciful when he was treated with nothing but vicious parsimony and paranoia?

He plunged both hands into the coffee table frame and yanked Rookwood out of it; the tinkling of falling glass accompanied his action, and it would have sounded pretty if it weren’t for the sickly squelch of oozing blood and torn flesh that preceded it. Peregrine threw Rookwood against the floor, and the rag doll of a former Death Eater rolled onto his back, looking at Peregrine helplessly.

Peregrine looked at the dying man seriously, as he always did before he had to kill someone. He hated,  _hated_  all of them – they were war criminals, racists, murderers and betrayers – but hate was not enough. Nothing was ever enough for him, anymore. He was just so fucking empty, all the fucking time; and not even a fucking sea of hate would come close to filling him up.

He hated himself for being like this. He hated what became of his life; he hated that he was always working the most thankless jobs to get by, he hated that he had nothing left to do in life anymore except watch television because he no longer had the luxury of possessing interests, and above all he hated that the biggest high he could get out of anything was through killing fucking cowards who couldn’t even fight back. Couldn’t even make it feel like what he was doing was legitimate, was significant, was  _worthy_. He hated everything, and most of all he hated that for all his hate and rage and sadness he could do nothing about it.

‘Fuck you,’ he spat at Rookwood as he brought his foot down upon his ribcage. He felt the brittle ribs snap like dry branches beneath his feet, and he ground his foot harder into Rookwood’s chest, until he could see the bones sticking out of his skin, like little altar candles waiting to be lit, an unsung prayer for Peregrine’s dead future. Rookwood’s lungs whistled from being punctured, and his blood splattered onto Perry’s slacks, making the wet fabric stick to his leg.

If Rookwood was screaming Perry wasn’t fucking listening anymore. His ears were roaring and crying and soundless; it was only him and nothingness, forever.

He walked away from Rookwood to where his bat was lying on the floor, and picked it up. The familiar weight grounded him back into the present, but reminded him of better days. Better days for all of them. Better days that had been killed off by the likes of Rookwood. He dragged himself back to the dying Death Eater.

‘Go to fucking Hell,’ he snarled as he raised the bat high above his head; its dark shape obscured the moon shining through the window, behind him. And with a savage swing, he brought it down on Rookwood’s head; blood splattered across his face, chest, and arms, and Rookwood’s skull splintered into another mess that he was uninterested in looking.

Peregrine stood up straight, and dropped his bat on the floor.

He sauntered over to Rookwood’s bathroom, and switched on the light with slippery fingers. He looked at himself in the mirror.

In the stark bathroom he looked hollower than usual, with his skin overexposed in the harsh light and blanched beneath the blood splattered across his face and neck. The light reflected into his irises, bright circles eclipsed by his pupils. For some reason, it made his dark brown eyes look even less lifelike, like the glassy eyes of a doll. He bent down over the sink and turned the faucet on. He washed his hands diligently with soap until the water stopped running pink, and then cleaned the blood from his face. He looked up again, still void with tired dark eyes, still pale against his dark clothes, dark hair, still thin thanks to personal inattentiveness.

Black never suited him; it made him look too sallow, too harsh. But he wouldn’t wear any other colour anymore. He remembered the first time he was paired up with his old teammate Adrian – the other boy commented that he had never seen Perry wear black  _ever_  before, and that Perry looked strange and funny in it. But after he saw Perry  _kill_ , he’s never commented on his wardrobe again.

Peregrine dried his hands and his face on one of the towels hanging on the rack, and used it to switch off the lights again; he didn’t want to touch it and get blood on his hands again. He brought it with him back into the entrance of the flat, and wiped down his bat with it.

Picking the bat up, he walked to the nearest window and swung it hard against the glass. It shattered with a pretty tinkling sound, and a crow immediately flew into the flat. Perry handed it the bloody towel, and turned away.

He opened the door of the flat and walked out. The door creaked to a close, and the lock clicked shut behind him.

* * *

‘Good work, Falcon,’ Adrian said as soon as they left the flat.

This was why Perry liked Adrian. He knew not to interrupt Perry whilst he was in the middle of a fury. He knew him better than anyone else on the team.

‘How’s Terry?’ Peregrine asked nonchalantly, as if he had not just brutally murdered a man not ten minutes ago. Terence never really talked to him again after he had decided to join the Last Meal, but he was still close with Adrian. Perry wondered if Adrian had ever told Terry that he joined, too.

‘He’s doing okay,’ Adrian said flatly. ‘I’ll see you around.’

‘Catch you later, mate,’ Perry acknowledged, and switched off the link. Adrian’s presence fizzed out like flat soda.

Peregrine dug in his pockets for a cigarette and his lighter. Something nasty to get rid of that more distasteful and unmistakable smell of blood. He put the cigarette between his lips, and hunched over the flickering, tiny flame of his lighter. The cool, sharp taste of menthol coated over every terrible thing he was and wasn’t feeling; and he felt fresh again.

* * *

As soon as he got back into his flat, Perry threw all his bloody clothes into the laundry basket and took a scalding shower to scour all the blood off of him. He put on a clean t-shirt and a fresh pair of sweatpants that he picked off of The Chair, and walked back to the living room. He unrolled the half-eaten bag of crisps on his coffee table, and switched the telly on again.

Just another episode in the life of Peregrine Derrick.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't smoke kids, it's not cool.
> 
> Perry's just fucked up.
> 
> As always, constructive criticism is encouraged and appreciated!
> 
> Come say hi to me on tumblr: durmstranqs.tumblr.com


	3. The Other Side of Paradise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I wish you could see the wicked truth  
> Caught up in a rush it's killing you
> 
> \----
> 
> Lucian Bole, 'Lumos'

London during the day can be something that seems ordinary and mundane, at the first glance, but to Lucian Bole it was something immeasurably extraordinary. Like any European city, it was a territory commandeered by sleek, modern skyscrapers and timeworn edifices alike, a metropolitan tug-of-war between the past and the present. However, London presented this vision with a twist. There was something more complex, more thorny about London. It was not a spontaneous conflict between the two disparate bodies; it was more like a brokered arrangement of a sort, a tailored compromise.

Everything about London was preternaturally neat, organised; things belonged where they  _belonged_ , in their own neighbourhoods of stereotypes, values, and norms. Yet these open demonstrations of identity seemed to imply that, beneath the obvious displays, existed something sinister and hidden; and that idea caused a visceral reaction of unease, curiosity, and excitement within Lucian. The emotion was multiplied threefold when Lucian wandered the streets in the evening, when all the proper markers and brands of the city disappeared into the muggy dark, and it seemed like secrets were swimming around him.

Which is why he preferred to work during the day, when his judgement was not obscured by the unseen shape of these prearranged mysteries, these exiled truths in the dark; when he could see what he was dealing with, and stay focused and objective.

The serenely flat, grey sky mirrored Lucian’s heart as he navigated his way through this city, a labyrinth with tall buildings for hedges, and he peered into the shadows cast around the city for his clues. His clear grey eyes darted around his surroundings swiftly, bouncing off glossy glass and rain-smoothed stone both, like sunlight deflecting off of water. It was not the look of a curious wanderer examining his path forward; it was not the look of a hero seeking to defend himself from the Minotaur within. It was the look of a hunter surveying his grounds.

Curling his lip, he bared a row of painfully white teeth; he passed a quick, sharp pink tongue over his ivory fangs. He would hunt tonight.

* * *

Carrying a briefcase in one hand and a folded umbrella in the other, Lucian sauntered into the British Library, his tan overcoat flapping behind him. The British Library was an august construction, its acute and precise contemporary style not making it seem less authoritative or respectable as an educational structure; the terracotta colour its exterior more evocative of the art of older worlds, than the aesthetics of the modern age.

He walked through the doors, into a large, airy expanse that stretched into another dimension entirely. Lucian took a deep breath, and breathed in the cool, clean scent of silence and good lighting. He found his way to his usual spot, in a corner of the library rarely accessed by the tourists who also tumbled in everyday in large and fumbling numbers. Lucian threaded through stacks and aisles with the familiarity of a resident, and the briskness of a shark through cold water. However, when he got to his usual desk, he noticed that someone else was sitting there.

Peregrine Derrick looked up from his book to stare at Lucian, his flinty brown eyes meeting Lucian’s slightly startled grey ones. Lucian also noticed that he had never seen Peregrine wear glasses before, and the sight disturbed him somewhat.

Peregrine closed his book deliberately.

‘What do you want?’ Lucian’s whisper came out a hiss. Peregrine took his feet off the desk – of course, the ruffian never learnt how to sit with proper posture even whilst they were at Hogwarts – and pushed himself away from the desk. He unfolded his spindly limbs with a certain degree of awkwardness, before collecting his book and then walking over to Lucian. With irritation, Lucian noticed that he did not bother to push the chair back in.

‘I want you to look this up for me,’ Peregrine said as he reached into the inner pocket of his jacket and took out a ripped piece of paper, folded up haphazardly. Lucian accepted it and unfolded it; the weight and brightness of the paper suggested that it might have once been part of an envelope. In Peregrine’s untidy, stormy script was a single name.  _Agni._

‘Falcon, you know I’m  _here_  for a mission, right?’ Pansy was going to meet up with him soon – in less than ten minutes – and establish a legilimency link in order to supervise him. Peregrine can’t just shove another task onto –

‘You’ll want to know, too,’ Peregrine said simply, staring down at Lucian. Now that he was standing up and half a head taller than Lucian, the shift in the elevation of their eye contact made Lucian feel annoyed. Though he had to admit that this wasn’t like Peregrine; Derrick was usually a more withdrawn bloke, and rarely talked to anyone outside of a mission. The fact that he was asking for Lucian’s help meant that this was a subject of great significance that he couldn’t get done himself.

And it bothered him that someone like  _Derrick_  would feel helpless, or  _perturbed_  by something. Or some _one_ ; Lucian didn’t know. It bothered Lucian that it bothered Peregrine enough to chase him out of his cheap sofa, and made him swap his sweats and flannels for an actually presentable pair of jeans, a respectable button-up, and fucking  _glasses_. No, he still wasn’t over the glasses.

Lucian glared up at Peregrine and stuffed the piece of paper in the back pocket of his slacks. ‘Why me?’ he grumbled; if this was something important, Peregrine could have just gone to Cassius.

‘Angel can’t know.’ Peregrine shot him a stern look that read,  _So you better keep your trap shut._  ‘And I don’t trust anyone else. Besides, we’ve always made a good team.’

‘Yeah, those days are long gone,’ Lucian laughed bitterly. Indeed, during their Hogwarts year there was no couple of beaters as synchronous and collaborative as Derrick and Bole; save for perhaps the Weasley twins. But even so that made their partnership impressive, since the two of  _them_ didn’t share a uncanny identical twin connection.

‘You know where to find me,’ Peregrine said by way of goodbye, and left Lucian alone.

Lucian walked over to the vacated desk, and dusted off its surface as well as the seat of the chair. He settled in, pulled the chair closer, and opened his briefcase. He took out a sleek laptop, and set it on his table. A cold light shined against his face as soon as he flipped up the monitor. With nimble fingers, Lucian logged into the machine. Placing a finger on the trackpad, he located the Messages application and clicked it open. He hovered over the contact list on the left sidebar, until he located one labeled ‘Nightshade’.

‘Dinner is ready to be served,’ he typed, hit send, and reclined in his seat.

* * *

Around fifteen minutes later, Pansy showed up, and dropped her bag on the other side of Lucian’s desk. She grabbed a chair from another desk, pulled it over to her side of Lucian’s desk, and sat down. As she booted up her computer, she tapped her foot against Lucian’s, and the link fizzed to life.

‘Lumos, do you copy?’

‘Affirmative, Nightshade.’

Lucian began sending his files over to Pansy. ‘So here is what I have on Mulciber,’ he spoke over the link, ‘Since Mulciber is known to favour routine and control – if you see footnote 23, it explains that he uniquely favoured the Imperius Curse, and I have a collection of human intelligence on his regimented schedules for each day of the week – I think it may be a better tactic to haphazardly reveal what we know to him; as he will not be able to control when he receives these messages, and therefore cannot anticipate them.’

Pansy nodded. ‘This seems reasonable to me. And once again, all of these sources check out?’

‘Naturally. I’ve taken precautions to verify the information given by doing a bit of personal reconnaissance when I had the time, as well as taking pains to  _ensure_  that our sources are not double agents and to  _motivate_  them to keep quiet.’ He looked up from his screen and smiled at Pansy. ‘You know that I can be  _very persuasive_.’

Pansy said nothing. She was never one much for words, after the War, Lucian thought. It was almost saddening, as she had been a bright, talkative personality at school. Although it got annoying at times, Lucian found that he still missed it, especially when faced with the immense emptiness of silence.

‘Stop being sentimental, it won’t bring any of it back,’ Pansy chastised him, not sharply, though; and Lucian dropped the train of thought. He forwarded a detailed schedule of his plan for the next few months over to Pansy, so she could follow his progress after they deactivated the legilimency link.

‘Very well,’ her voice buzzed over the link. ‘I’ll be keeping in touch. Take care, Lumos; though you’re probably the most careful of all of us.’ She made eye contact with him across the desk, and then packed away her things, got up, and left, the link fizzing out behind her.

Lucian took his time logging out of his computer, and putting it away into his briefcase. He loitered around the library for while, browsing the shelves; not that it amounted to anything, as he couldn’t borrow anything out of the library. He hoped that one day he would walk into this library, with the time and energy to read for pleasure. Unfortunately, it seemed like that wouldn’t happen in a long time.

* * *

As soon as Lucian returned to his apartment, he started on a fresh pot of coffee. He enjoyed the ritual of it – scooping out the beans, whirring them through the grinder, and then putting the grounds in his french press, then adding boiling water. The orderly, logical sequence of it appealed to him greatly; he’d always been an organised person, but in recent years, with his life greatly unbalanced and uncertain thanks to the War, he’d come to appreciate this … structure and stability even more.

Lucian left his coffee to steep as he retreated to his study, extracting several heavy folders from his desk, labeled in neat block letters,  _OPERATION IMPERATOR_. He brought his files to his living room, and set them on the heavy oaken coffee table. He pulled his computer out of his briefcase, logged in through a different account, and got back to work.

As technology began to evolve in the Muggle world, it naturally caught up with the Wizarding society as well. The age of the Internet provided a whole new level of anonymity for its Muggle users; and wizards sought to benefit from it too. There was a myriad of various services one could employ under an anonymous alias – and whether these activities contributed to a surprise birthday party or the murder of an ex-Death Eater, no one would know.

Logging onto an anonymous owls service, Lucian requested a particular message to be sent to a particular address, and paid with the credit card that Graham had given him. For members who had more …  _expensive_  methods – which were really not expensive at all; it was just that no one really spent money to take out a mark – they were all sponsored completely by the Organisation, though no one knew where Cassius had gotten the money. Knowing the nature of groups and sources they had ties with, no one really wanted to know.

 _Was this what Peregrine had wanted him to look up?_  Lucian frowned. Peregrine should know better than to poke around the Organisation’s business. What’s gotten into him?

Lucian padded over to the kitchen and poured himself a mug of coffee. He returned to the living room and hovered over his laptop, watching the progress of his order – monitoring when his message would be printed and attached to the bird he had chosen.

It was a rather risky choice, to use an online company to print out confidential information and tie it to a bird that anyone could shoot down. However, Lucian needed to make Mulciber dance; he needed to use methods that would obviously have him feeling exposed and vulnerable. It’s always the easiest way to flush them out of hiding.

He kicked back onto his sofa and sipped his coffee quietly. The sky outside his window darkened slightly, and he was expecting to hear the pitter-patter of rain anytime. It was almost unbelievable that he now had the free time in the middle of the day to watch the rain fall.

In another reality, Lucian Bole would be a very busy man indeed. He always strived to be the best version of himself, to fulfill his true potential; so he would socialise tirelessly, meeting all sorts of important witches, wizards, sorcerers, and mages to network; he would go to university to push himself and hone his skills; he would work himself up the ranks and become a respectable man.

He wasn’t born into a particularly aristocratic family. He didn’t have an already established estate to lean back upon, nor a notorious name that would brand him. He was simply Lucian Bole, the son of two middling purebloods, who named their son ‘light’, expressing their hope for a brighter future, a prominent reputation.

Unfortunately, his parents were clumsy and misinformed in their pursuit of status; they sympathised with Voldemort in hopes of receiving a social and economic boost for supporting a pro-pureblood politician. It was clearly an unwise move, but Lucian had not been able to persuade them to drop it. Lucian never trusted Voldemort, naturally … but his parents’ actions nevertheless condemned him to association. His parents’ greatest desire, to become  _better_  – which also became  _his_  desire – ended up damning the whole family.

Now he had no prospects to speak of – being an amateur spy, investigator, and blackmailer was perhaps the best use of his abilities at this point. It wasn’t like it was a particularly bad situation. Lucian still enjoyed that he held such  _power_  over other people; but what was his legacy? What would he be remembered for?

Nothing. The name ‘Lucian Bole’ is as good as dead right now. Since all the Organisation’s operations were strictly anonymous for the safety of all involved – a strategy that Lucian greatly understood and respected – it was unlikely that his efforts would ever be commemorated. They may be credited to ‘Lumos’, but they’d never be  _his_  achievements.

His deeds would change the world; but  _he_  would not.

Lucian had more or less made his peace with that. At least he was being useful, and he was  _good_ at what he did. These two conditions kept him more or less happy, even though his situation was not ideal. However, he would rather remain like this, if the other option were to throw his life out the window and indulge in self-destructive behaviours, succumbing to existential depression. Living is not about achieving one’s dreams or being happy – living is learning to make do with what’s been thrown at you.

And life had thrown a lot of stuff at Lucian – including a treasure trove of information, contacts, and sources connected to the Death Eaters. Lucian’s parents’ dabbling in Voldemortian politics granted him unique access to some of Voldemort’s closest subjects, and while his parents were trying to pander onto these greater, aristocratic purebloods, Lucian learnt a lot about them.

Ugly secrets that they never told anyone. Locations of secret hideaways. Personal habits, preferences, and even  _fears_. It’s amazing how much an adult will talk after a few servings of alcohol down their gullet. He stored all this information neatly away, because if he were to get revenge for his stunted future, these details would be his weapons.

He was the ultimate puppet-master, threading together implicating evidence and twisting the ropes to make his marks dance. The weak-willed often caved in earlier to the fear, startled by the incredible amount of incriminating information sent their way. Many of them commit suicide, rather than face the authorities. Others stuck out, convinced that Lucian wouldn’t  _dare_  go to the aurors, that he was just bluffing; for if he really wanted to go to the aurors, he would have just taken that information and gone. They thought that Lucian kept this information between them because he wanted something out of it. The truth was that Lucian was bored; and he enjoyed watching people react to him. He often followed up this tactic by having Peregrine and Graham hover around menacingly at his marks’ place of residence; show them that Lucian and the Organisation could  _really_  hurt them. Since Peregrine and Graham were pretty terrible, that was usually enough to scare them into submission. If even  _that_  didn’t work, Lucian would just tip the aurors. He had better things to do than to play a passive-aggressive game of blackmail tug-o-war with a former Death Eater. Or he’d sic either someone else on the job.

No one survived the Organisation. Lucian would hound them down.

In fact, this contributed greatly to the Organisation’s notoriety as ‘The Last Meal’. Since word of their rogue assassination team’s extraordinary success and horrifying methods got out – thanks to some of the flashier messages left by Millicent – the amount of Death Eaters turning themselves in, so as to escape a gruesome death, increased significantly.

This pleased Lucian greatly; he was very smug about the success rate. After all, he deserved to be; he put a lot of hard work in verifying his evidence and planning out most of the missions – since he was the master of information, he headed Death Eater-hunting, and supervised mark-assigning as well.

He would find every last Death Eater if it was the last thing he did. Maybe then would they be able to reveal who they truly were; and perhaps after seeing the proof of atonement for these Slytherins, the public would be willing to accept them back into their society again.

Maybe he still had a shot at that life.

* * *

Lucian watched Mulciber for two months. Since he didn’t really have much of a job – he worked as a Wizarding technology consultant over the Internet, as well as a ‘research librarian’ for hire, in regards to more … esoteric subjects. After all, there are topics that ordinary libraries don’t usually cover; and Lucian was a master of hidden informations and clandestine intelligence.

He enjoyed working in the British Library. It was well-lighted, public, and peaceful; he attracted nearly no attention, a well-dressed young man diligently at work. He had a peaceful demeanor and a trustworthy expression, and no one ever noticed him selling secrets of the Dark Arts over the Internet.

He supposed that he shouldn’t be selling those secrets over the Internet; after all, he was supposed to be  _good_  now. He was supposed to be taking the bad guys  _out_ , not sponsoring their activities. Though, another way too look at it was to see it as a trap – they come buying intelligence from him; and he ends up tracking them down and in turn gathering intelligence on  _them_. It’s a win-win situation for him – he gets the information he wants, and gets paid by the victim for it. Lucian was an opportunist, if anything.

Between his usual activities and monitoring Mulciber, Lucian also did some research on ‘Agni’. He was quite irritated with Peregrine, who basically just handed him a torn-off corner of an envelope with ‘Agni’ scribbled across it. He did a quick search on Google, and of course the results are pertained to the Hindu god of the name, a god of fire and messengers. Obviously, this was not what Peregrine had in mind. He called Peregrine about it; but he only told Lucian that it was an alias of someone he found but didn’t recognise. Peregrine was looking through the Organisation’s files to decide on his next mark, and this name cropped up several times, which was suspicious, considering that it had never been mentioned before.

Peregrine thought that perhaps it was the codename for a new operative, but when he checked the personnel list for a handler, he didn’t find any new names. So, he naturally came to the conclusion that something was afoot, and purposefully happening behind all their backs. And Peregrine did not like having any blindspots. Neither did Lucian, so he carried on with his search.

It was obviously near-impossible to find any information with only an alias to go off of; and moreover, it was also difficult to conduct this research  _anonymously_ , since no one could work out what they were investigating  _the Organisation_. That would perhaps end in very untimely deaths for the both of them. Lucian thus confined his probing to his private circles, asking other ‘librarians’ if they had received queries regarding a figure going by the name of ‘Agni’; nothing turned up. Similarly, none of his victims-turned-sources reported any information regarding Agni, either.

Lucian also logged onto the Organisation’s database and combed through the entire thing – he did not want his history to record a specific search for ‘Agni’, in case someone  _in the know_  may find that suspicious – but nothing turned up. Knowing Cassius, it’s entirely possible that he only kept the information in his own mind, and any mention of ‘Agni’ would be kept on easily destroyable paper. However, it was unlike Cassius to leave such files just lying around, letting Peregrine find them. Uneasy, Lucian felt like it could be a trap, and pursued this investigation unusually cautiously.

Meanwhile Mulciber was positively writhing in his ‘secret’ hideout. Lucian scheduled his owls in advanced, and whenever a delivery was due to be made, he walked into a café across the street from Mulciber’s hideaway, and camped out there to monitor his reactions. He also went there on non-scheduled days, however, partly to shake off any detection of espionage on Mulciber’s part, but also because the coffee there was damned good.

Mulciber sent him multiple owls back, scans of which Lucian received on his account for Owlnonymous, and they mainly contained empty threats regarding how Mulciber would end him soon; ‘I have sources,’ he told Lucian, not knowing that Lucian had  _already_  bought-out or threatened all of his sources. Lucian enjoyed being thorough. He did not dignify those threats with a response, and merely sent  _Daily Prophet_  clippings on ‘The Last Meal’’s hits to Mulciber. One day he caught Mulciber reading one about Graham and visibly paling, as Lucian was sipping an exceptional  _caffè latte_.

Mulciber had no one important to him that Lucian could threaten him with, so he merely sat back and calmly denoted the ways he could take him out – to report him to Lucian’s Organisation, who would no doubt send a less merciful person to take him out, in a variety of gruesome ways; or he could release all this information at a random moment, and sic the aurors upon Mulciber; or, he could sell Mulciber out to the highest bidder, and God knows what would happen then. Certainly a lot of his victims would love to get a good chunk out of him.

Mulciber then pleaded for forgiveness, tried to offer him bribes, and sought to sell himself as a new source for Lucian; but Lucian was interested in neither of these, naturally. He could fetch a better price from other buyers, and who would want  _Mulciber_  as a source, a Death Eater who had lost all his connections as soon as he went off the grid? Besides, Lucian had more than enough sources – how else would he have found Mulciber?

Mulciber then asked what Lucian was going to do with him. Perhaps it was a desperate attempt to forge an escape plan; maybe he was just seeking the comfort of knowing his fate. Lucian would not grant him either luxury. He merely wrote back, ‘You’ll see,’ and ceased replying to Mulciber’s frantic pleading.

He then waited out by the café, keeping an eye on Mulciber whilst he continued his hunt for Agni. He was now narrowing down his suspects by filtering the people who could be in contact with the Organisation. based on their knowledge of Hindu mythology. Although, it occurred to him that it was equally as likely that ‘Agni’ was an acronym, and that possibility would be a serious pain to deal with.

At night, if he was bored, he would sometimes leave some indications that he  _hadn’t_  forgotten about Mulciber – ordering a parcel owl to deliver rat bones to his address, or sending a howler of Millicent’s favourite lullaby. It was like the ticking of a bomb before it exploded; except more erratic, more unnerving, more uncertain.

By the end of the month Mulciber had caved in. The last straw was a small effigy of Mulciber, wearing the clothes he was wearing the day before, and another effigy in ragged, bloody clothes that Lucian fashioned out of a shirt that Peregrine so generously donated. Not many people knew this, but Lucian was rather good at handicrafts.

Mulciber opened his window – the first time that Lucian had seen him do it – and whistled for a crow. With shaking hands he attached a letter to the crow, and sent it to the aurors. Within the hour, a discreet group of figures dressed in Muggle clothes appeared at Mulciber’s doorstep, and rang his bell. Mulciber came down willingly, looking around fearfully. He did not spot Lucian, who had been watching calmly, sipping his coffee. The aurors bundled him away, and Lucian spotted the great Harry Potter amongst them.

He opened ‘Nightshade’ on his Messenger application and sent, ‘Target neutralised.’ He then sat back and enjoyed the last rays of the autumn sun, the feeble breath of a season fading into cold darkness.

* * *

 _The Daily Prophet_  reported Mulciber’s turning himself in very soon, in the next day’s paper. Apparently he had sent a frantic letter to the Ministry, begging them to ‘save him.’ Lucian smiled smugly as he sipped his coffee.

Although Lucian was not the fastest operator in the field, he was the most thorough, and his long-term approach inspired a dogged and omniscient reputation for the Organisation. More underworldly characters found out about them, and defected to their side before it was too late. Therefore, he was often assigned to take out the most prominent targets, as well as the ones with the most connections.

His webs stretched out infinitely, and he could play them like a harp; however, sometimes, he could not control what fell onto his plate.

An Owlnonymous owl flew into his window the day following Mulciber’s arrest. In scratchy black handwriting, it read, ‘You won’t find me. – A’.

Lucian nearly poured his coffee down his front. He set it down on his table; and, scrambling, he ran over to his phone and dialed Peregrine’s number.

‘What?’ Peregrine responded, his voice crunchy with static.

‘They know,’ Lucian whispered.

‘I know.'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, constructive criticism is encouraged and appreciated!
> 
> Come say hi to me on tumblr: durmstranqs.tumblr.com


	4. Life Itself

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Come back down to my knees  
> Gotta get back, gotta get free
> 
> \----
> 
> Graham Montague, 'Cracker'

‘It’s that house, right around the corner,’ Millicent’s voice confirmed through the legilimency link, authoritative despite the wavering connection.

Graham rolled into the cobbled streets from the shadows. ‘The red brick one, right?’ he asked as he tip-toed forward, although no one would have been able to hear him even if he had been walking normally.

‘Did you have to do a forward roll?’ Millicent hissed at him.

Graham grinned impishly. ‘Got to get into the character and mood, Hellcat.’

‘You’re not even that type of assassin! You’re a demolitions expert!’

Graham sighed dramatically. ‘A man can dream, though.’

‘You  _chose_  to be a demolitions expert, Cracker.’

Graham shrugged even though Millicent couldn’t see him. ‘Many of us hold down more than one job nowadays,’ he contended.

‘We  _have_  to, because there are  _no_  jobs for Slytherins!’ Graham could hear her rolling her eyes. ‘That’s the reason why we’re in fucking  _Norwich_ , in the middle of the night, hunting down a fucking ex-Death Eater, ex-Ministry employee.’

‘A doubly unsympathetic character,’ Graham shook his head as he melded into the shadows of the house. ‘Honestly, he deserves to know that we’re coming for him. Put fear in his heart for once,’ he commented as he snapped open the briefcase he carried with him. He stuck his hand into its endless maw and groped around for his first bomb.

‘Angel already explained; we obviously can’t,’ Millicent hissed, ‘Travers is too cautious and too skilled for us to hope to take him out, one-on-one, without causing a huge ruckus.’

‘Hellcat, I’m planting bombs.  _We’re causing a huge ruckus._ ’

‘Yes, I am aware, but at least we’re not going to be putting on a huge laser show for everyone while we’re at it.’

 _Ah, yes._  How could Graham forget their near-detection at one of their earlier missions, in which an agent and a mark engaged in some serious dueling, resulting in colours of various kinds bursting at the windows, loud incantations ringing into the night, and a mess of magical signatures? It took them so long to cover up all their tracks from that one. Graham didn’t remember who was the agent for this mission. He paused to recollect as he fished his bomb out of the briefcase.

It  _might_  have been him.

‘I don’t remember exactly either but it was probably you,’ Millicent confirmed.

‘Laser shows are cool, though,’ Graham argued weakly.

He stuck his other hand into the briefcase and found a pair of spectacles in a side pocket. He slid the spectacles out of the bag, unfolded them by shaking them roughly, and slid them over his eyes.

A world of black and white, bones and shadows flashed before him. Pellucidity Lenses. Graham had snatched up a pair from Zonko’s during his school years and held on to them; who knew that they’d be useful tonight, years after, in the assassination of an ex-Death Eater?

The main supports of the building showed themselves before Graham, thick and sturdy wooden posts, exposed and vulnerable to Graham’s attacks. Taking out his wand, Graham levitated his bombs to the strongest parts of the building; which were simultaneously the weakest parts. For once you take down the sturdiest parts of a building, the more fragile parts inevitable cave in and collapse. Spectacularly.

The figure of Travers reclined above Graham in his bedroom, unknowing of his immediate fate, and unbothered by his identity. Graham smirked; it was just like Travers to be so arrogant, thinking that no one could find him, an ex-Death Eater, in lovely Norwich, so seemingly tranquil and un-evil, with its numerous cute tea rooms and colourful bookshops.

But Lucian could sniff out anyone. How he did it, Graham didn’t want to know.

Though, that being said, Travers was quick and slippery; after all, it took skill to be able to wriggle out of the rubble of the Battle of Hogwarts, to lie low for so long, and to make it away, undetected –  _by most_. Graham raised his wand and the words tumbled liltingly from his mouth; the air around the building shimmered with the faint glitter of a force field. Didn’t want anything coming out of the house, or hitting anything beyond the perimeter.

‘I hope he doesn’t see that,’ Hellcat commented boredly.

‘He won’t, he’s probably sleeping,’ Graham reassured her.  _Even if he were awake, it would be really strange for him to stare out the window_ , Graham thought to himself,  _He’s a known Death Eater, not some Emily Dickinson type_.

Something crackled on Millicent’s end of the link, and it sounded like muffled laughter. Graham smirked to himself and got back to work.

To the casual observer, it may seem that bombing a house was simple and facile work; it did not require the exertion that physically murdering a person required, nor did it call for extensive magical skill and knowledge to execute.

However, to truly pull off serial bombings, it took skill.

Planning explosions are much like choreographing theatre, Graham considered. One must not place bombs at too obvious of locations for then the end result ends up looking evidently rehearsed, premeditated, unnatural; the goal was not to simply take out a victim, but to do it most discreetly.

Enough to pass under the noses of certain aurors. Minimalist enough to make it look like an accident; although with a varied enough arsenal to produce diverse effects, masking distinctive patterns and tell-tale signs; to eliminate all evidence.

Bombing a target was an art. It required imagination, technique, and vision; and of course, personality. A certain flair, a half-signature – or else, how would people pick up that the Organisation was out there taking them out?

Graham placed his weapons strategically around the building, his mind whirring to figure out how they would detonate and how the building would collapse in onto itself; and how it would inevitably crush the mark inside, no blood on Graham’s hands.

It was simple, detached business; as simple as being a rogue assassin gets. You kill your mark from a distance, watching it all happen like you’re a bystander; you kill them without touching them, hearing them, seeing them.

 _That was good_ , Graham thought to himself; he never wanted to see a Death Eater again in his life. His chest burned with a feeling of annoyance at the thought.

‘You alright?’ Millicent asked.

‘Yep, m’alright; I’m almost done.’ Graham responded. He took one last sweeping glance over his work, and then checked to see if Travers was still in bed. He hadn’t moved an inch. ‘Hellcat, I’m on the move,’ he reported as he packed away his things and started walking quickly away from the house.

‘Keep to your side of the road, the Muggle cameras won’t see you as long as you keep to the shadows. The churchyard should be an adequate location.’

‘I copy you, thanks Hellcat.’ He lurched forward in the dark, until he saw the headstones of the old churchyard jut out of the ground like jagged dark teeth. He tiptoed behind the tallest one he could find – one ought to be careful around old burial grounds, for frequently the dead are buried shallowly upon one another, and the ground will cave in under pressure – and pressed himself against the cool stone.

‘I’m ready whenever you are,’ he said.

‘Detonate at will,’ she said.

Graham pointed his wand at the house, and twisted it in a quick circle. He cast a quick  _muffliato_ around his ears, and ducked.

There was a blinding flash of white light – like that of lightning – that briefly lit up the night, and a loud, angry  _bang_ ; and then the dying sound of crumbling brick and rising dust; ashes to ashes. The building crunched apart easily and  _loudly_ ; Graham needed to get out of here  _fast_.

He stuck his head out from behind the gravestone to observe the devastation one last time. The top floor of the building had been blown to bits, and caved into the first floor,. The entire structure lay in jagged ruins. There’s no way Travers could have survived that. Graham waved his wand and performed a quick check for sign of life – none. ‘Target neutralised,’ he reported.

He just caught the beginnings of Millicent’s ‘Good,’ before he apparated away.

* * *

The door chime  _ping_ ed as Graham touched his card to the reader. He gripped the handle and pushed the door open; as he walked in it clicked shut behind him, and he threw himself onto the bed.

It would be too suspicious if there was surveillance camera footage of him coming into Norwich the day of the explosion and leaving right after it, so the Organisation had agreed that he should stay a few nights at a cheap hotel, laying low and pretending to be a traveller.

Graham flipped over onto his back and surveyed the room. It was a small, plain deal, with beige walls and brown curtains, and just big enough for a bed, a desk, and a closet-sized bathroom.  _Almost feels like a box_ , Graham thought, sighing. He sat up and removed his clothes, draping them over the chair by the desk. He crawled under the covers, and with the snap of his fingers extinguished the light.

 _What am I going to do tomorrow?_  he questioned himself boredly; then he realised that he asked himself this everyday. What  _was_  there to do for his kind? Sure, he still had his parents’ fortune and estate, but what’s a full vault if no one will take your gold, and what’s an enormous mansion if there’s only one person? What’s a home if your family will never come back, and your parents will grow old and die far away, in Bourges, where they went to hide from the worst of the War? Thanks to the current political atmosphere, it’s likely they’ll never come back.

Perhaps it’s all well that they didn’t come back. Graham imagined that it would be awkward to explain to them what he’s been doing. It was even awkward for Graham; in all his school-time daydreams about his future, being a rogue amateur assassin was  _definitely_  not on the list.

However, despite the nature and reputation of this sort of ‘occupation’, surprisingly it wasn’t totally objectionable, Graham decided. He didn’t mind the killing; it was necessary, he believed. Former Death Eaters definitely deserved to die, and moreover Graham wasn’t willing to let them live in order to incite another pureblood elitism movement. But he did not reap enjoyment nor righteousness from killing these Death Eaters; he wasn’t fueled by vengeance like Pansy, or indignation like Peregrine, or opportunity like Lucian. He was simply doing his part to prevent all their fates from befalling future generations. It wasn’t fair that their lives had to be decided by the actions of people who didn’t give two shits about them.

So Graham decided to take things into his own hands; to let his actions better the lives of those who came after him, because  _he_  cared. He had hope; after all Voldemort was finally dead, and wounds would heal. There could be a day when Slytherins were forgiven and pardoned; but that day would not come if Death Eaters had been allowed to exist, crusts of salt over old cuts. He had to remove them.

He sighed, turned to his side, and closed his eyes. He felt like he was nothing; he felt like a tired heaviness. Who knew how weighty nothing ended up being?

Tomorrow he would do something to lighten himself up; after all life is wasted if you spend all your time wallowing in your thoughts and marinating in your sadness.

* * *

Sun streamed through the big window panes of the tea room, a rare treat in the middle of March. Graham sipped his cup of assam placidly, feeling the aromatic warmth fill him up from his core to his fingertips. He put the cup down onto its saucer, and set them both on the table. Picking up the butter knife, he cut open one of his two fruit scones, and smeared it with clotted cream and strawberry jam.

As he bit into the buttery, sweet goodness, his mobile pinged with a local headline. He was sure it was about the job last night, and he knew that he really shouldn’t read it if he didn’t want to spoil his good mood; but he couldn’t help it. What if it’s something important? Setting down the half-eaten scone back onto the plate, Graham picked up his phone and tapped at notification.

BOMB ATTACK AT FORMER DEATH EATER’S SECRET RESIDENCE, the headline blared, with a smaller line of all-caps words along the bottom of it, AURORS ARE BAFFLED. Graham picked up his cup again and sipped nervously. It was  _not ideal_  that the aurors picked up on it being a targeted attack. It was alright, though – the Organisation needed to remind people that they were out there, once in a while. Spook them out, make the chase interesting; or else assassination would just become a bore.

Graham put down his cup, and picked up his scone again. Between bites he read the article, and felt his heart grow cold despite the warmth of the freshly brewed tea. The aurors picked out Graham’s pattern-less pattern, correctly concluded that the house belonged to Travers although the body should be beyond recognition after the ordeal, and correctly identified the perpetrators as ‘The Last Meal’ – which, actually, was not altogether unexpected, as they were the only known rogue assassin group. But, worst of all, they found bomb fragments at the site.

That was  _impossible_. None of Graham’s bombs left any trace – in fact, they were less traditional bombs, and more alchemical concoctions that he brewed in his parents’ empty estate; he encased them in a thin shell that usually crumbles to dust with the force of the blast; and any last remnants would dissolve with the evening dew. The fact that aurors found fragments at the site meant something very,  _very_  bad.

Someone was interfering with their assassinations.

Graham’s hand shook as he drained his cup and read on. The next line nearly had him spluttering.

‘The body was not identified to be Travers’. Aurors suspect that it belonged to an ordinary Muggle. There was no residual magic around the body.’

Graham’s heart sank so low that he was sure it rested under his feet, beneath the cold stone floor of the tea room.  _How could the body have been a Muggle’s? Travers lived in a Wizarding neighbourhood?_  Graham pondered to himself.  _Had he killed a Muggle?_

The rest of the article yielded no more information. Nervously, he closed the application and asked the waitress for the bill. After paying for his breakfast, he walked briskly out of the tea room, hoping not to look too suspicious, straight to his tiny hotel room again.

As soon as he burst through the door, he dialed Lucian’s secure number, and tapped his feet impatiently as he waited for Lucian to pick up the phone. It rang a couple of times before Lucian managed to find it; Graham heard Lucian shutting off the coffee grinder in the background.

‘Cracker, what is it?’

‘Lumos, have you read the news today?’

‘No, not yet. Why?’

‘We’re in deep shit. Read it and get back to me.’ He hung up before Lucian could answer; rude, he knew, but he was too paranoid to stay on the phone for too long, even if their numbers were all secure.  _Supposedly._

He called Millicent next. ‘What have you done?’ she seethed through the receiver right after she picked up. So  _she_  had read the news.

‘It wasn’t me,’ Graham explained, ‘You know that I clean up a scene like no one else. I think someone has set us up. Or used us to set someone else up, rather.’

‘Why would anyone do that?’

‘I have no idea,’ Graham confessed, ‘But I’m having Lumos look at it.’

‘Shit. We should tell Angel.’

‘Probably, yeah,’ Graham nodded to himself.

‘I’ll call him. Stay put, keep a low profile.’

Graham nodded even though she couldn’t see him. Millicent hung up.

‘Fuck!’ he cursed softly as he threw his phone against his bed. It bounced off and fell onto the carpeted floor. Graham didn’t pick it up.

This was impossible. They had pulled off the perfect hit. The most the aurors should have been able to do would be to figure out that it was on purpose, and done by the Organisation. That was supposed to be  _the worst case scenario_. It wasn’t even supposed to get  _there_.

What they got instead was incredibly fishy. Various theories raced through Graham’s mind – it was possible that someone had the body replaced with one that was less mashed-up and more identifiable; after all, the bomb fragments were all placed after the deed. On the other hand, it was possible that … someone had planted the wrong body there before hand. The thought left a bad taste in his mouth –  _someone was out to screw them, why? They were doing the community a service, taking out these bastards._  Or … they might have really killed the wrong person. Graham immediately rejected that conclusion; no, something was definitely planted, or else how would the bomb fragments be explained? Moreover, Lucian was never wrong when it came to target locations …

Graham’s phone began buzzing on the ground.  _Speak of the Devil._  He picked it up and quickly dusted it off his trousers. ‘Lumos?’

‘What the  _fuck_  have you done,’ Lucian’s voice teetered along the edge of disgruntled and absolutely furious.

‘Listen, you know my methods, you know this wasn’t me,’ Graham argued defensively.

‘Are you saying  _I_  found the  _wrong_  target?’

‘No,  _no!_ ’ Graham shook his head. ‘No, you’re never wrong.’

‘Then whose fault is it?’

Graham took a deep breath. ‘I think it’s an outside party.’

Lucian said something muffled that sounded a lot like  _Fuck!_

‘I think someone is either using us to set someone up, or actually setting us up,’ Graham continued.

Graham heard the sound of things being kicked, and something that maybe sounded like  _Perry_ and  _bastard_.  _Was Peregrine behind this?_  Graham frowned. It wasn’t like Derrick to do something like this; did he know something that Graham didn’t?

‘I’ll look into it,’ Lucian said suddenly, his voice seeming louder after the prolonged disturbed non-silence that he had performed. ‘I’m going to catch this fucker.’

‘Keep me updated,’ Graham said.

‘I’ll keep you in the loop. When are you coming back to London?’

‘The day after tomorrow,’ Graham answered.

‘Shit. I guess they can’t have you coming back quite so soon after the incident,’ Lucian reasoned, ‘In the meantime, can you comb the Norwich wizarding community for possible clues?’

‘I suppose my Glamour skills aren’t too rusty; I could cast a passable disguise,’ Graham agreed. Of course, a Glamour wasn’t ideal, but he did not have the resources nor the luxury to attempted something like a Polyjuice potion; he couldn’t be seen shelling out that amount of cash, for those very specific ingredients neither.

‘Good,’ Lucian said, ‘Be careful, Cracker. Something’s been afoot and this could be connected,’ he continued.

‘What? When were you  going to tell –’

‘ _Don’t_  tell anyone,’ Lucian hissed, and Graham could hear the blade’s edge in his voice. ‘I’m trusting you. Don’t betray us.’

 _Us? Who was us?_  Graham decided not to press on further. Lucian would tell him all in time, he was sure. He trusted Lucian as well; though if something is truly happening around the Organisation, he wasn’t sure who to trust anymore.

‘Alright, we’ll keep in touch,’ Lucian said by way of goodbye and hung up.

Graham put the phone on his bedside table, closed his eyes, and tried to sleep.

He needed to fucking reset his brain. This was all too much.

* * *

Norwich was very pretty at sunset. The sky stretched on for many hues, smooth and warm, filling Graham with a sense of lightheartedness and strange wistfulness. As he walked down the cobbled paths, twisting into winding alleys, he looked up at the sky, looming reassuringly above him. He would have liked to seen it on a better day than today.

He reached up to scratch his head and found his fingers tangled in long, coarse, and unfamiliar hair; he still was not used to his Transfigured wig from an old cotton shirt. He let his hand drop back to his side, and sauntered up to the gate of the Alchemists’ Alley.

The wrought iron, recognising his magic, parted easily like soft wire for him, and he slid into the Alley. Graham surveyed the scene before him, and decided to head towards the busiest pub he could see – usually there was good information to be picked up there.

He dropped into the Facetious Friar, and slid into a table in the corner. He ordered a gnome-brewed stout from the barmaid, and wandlessly cast a hearing enhancement spell. After being a part of the Organisation for so long, magic like that came naturally.

The barmaid brought him his stout and he nursed it slowly whilst eavesdropping on everyone’s conversations. There was quite a lot of talk about the bombing, unsurprisingly. A place like Norwich did not get many bombings or assassinations.

It seemed to Graham that the residents were mainly worried that there had been a Death Eater amongst their midst, and they had not noticed it. ‘Truly a slimy Slytherin,’ one man said disdainfully, and Graham felt annoyance twist sharply at him. It was annoying because it was true – the Organisation was just as slimy and slippery, if not more so, than Travers and his type. Only Slytherins can capture Slytherins.

Hours passed as Graham listened patiently to fragments of conversations. Nothing important or significant came up, and Graham was about to leave, when someone suddenly sat down across from him, and looked him straight in the eye.

‘Graham Montague,’ Harry Potter said, ‘It’s been a while.’

Graham’s immediate instinct was to get up and  _run_ , as fast as he could; but of course that was a fucking foolish idea, Potter would catch him in no time. It’d just make him look guiltier. Not that wearing a Glamour and a wig wasn’t guilty enough;  _though how did Potter see through his Glamour?_  Graham looked at Potter’s bright red uniform with the Head Auror badge over his heart.  _Shit_ , he should have put more effort into his disguise if he was supposed to evade someone of that rank.

Nevermind, he can try his best to play along with it; if Potter ever asked him, it was for an amateur theatre production he just came from. Yes, theatre was plausible. Graham cleared his throat and tried to form a polite greeting in his head. ‘Potter, how nice to see you. Certainly wasn’t expecting to see you again, after school.’

Harry laughed, and the corners of his eyes crinkled up amiably. Graham wondered how this man became the mascot of all those who hated Slytherin. He looked so relaxed, so approachable; which struck Graham as odd, given what Potter had gone through.  _What was his game?_

‘Nice? Oh it’s certainly not nice to see me. I’m here on official business,’ Potter gestured at his auror uniform, ‘Unfortunately there’s been an explosion here, I’m sure you’ve heard already.’

‘Well, yes,’ Graham confirmed. He did not want to talk more about the incident; if Potter were to delve into the details of the case, he would have no choice but to lie even more, which would lead to more storylines for Lucian to follow and for everyone to continue playing. It would be a mess.

‘It’s not a nice way to go,’ Harry commented, and looked into his own drink. He was drinking some kind of ale, Graham decided. Harry wore a sort of expressionless look, but it could have easily been exhaustion from work, or his way of showing pity. He used to be an easily readable person in school; and Draco Malfoy delighted in driving him obviously nuts, but Harry after the death of Voldemort seemed much more like a guarded, impartial person. Graham wondered what he was afraid of, and what he believed in, for he could not see either fear nor belief in the post-War Harry Potter.

He tried to not watch Harry too conspicuously as he drank more of his stout. Harry still looked the way he did when they were at school; he had the same smooth brown skin and green eyes, and messy black hair which he now wore rather long. His face was sharper and older looking, but he was still the same boy from Hogwarts.

‘But he was dead before he got to the house,’ Harry said, and Graham nearly spit out his drink.

‘I don’t know if you’re supposed to be telling me that,’ Graham pointed out, although he did not object to Potter divulging extra information to him. Perhaps the bloke had a bit much to drink; but Potter didn’t look drunk. He looked perfectly lucid.

‘Of course I’m supposed to,’ Harry replied, ‘We’re on the same side.’ Graham looked at him unsurely, but Harry’s gaze was adamant.

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Graham said quietly.

‘I know of your Organisation,’ Harry explained. ‘I admire your work.’

Graham shook his head. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ he lied, ‘I know of no such organisation, I’m merely passing through Norwich on my way to see my uncle and aunt.’  _Shit shit shit shit, how did_  Potter  _know? Were they_  exposed  _or something_  –

‘If I didn’t know about you and the Organisation, how would I have been able to find you?’ Harry continued.

‘F-find me?’ Graham stumbled. ‘You mean, you didn’t just bump into me right now, you’ve been … looking for me?’  _Shit, was it me?_   _Was it me_ again _?_

Harry nodded. ‘I’ve been looking for all of you. The time is about to come,’ he explained opaquely.

‘How do you mean?’ Graham’s heart was thumping uncomfortably in his chest.  _Fuck, did Lucian know this?_

‘It’s nearly time for dessert,’ Harry said simply. He whipped out his auror’s notebook and a quill, and wrote down a number on a piece of paper. ‘Here’s my number; let’s keep in touch.’

Graham accepted it and started at the scrawl of numbers. His mind was wooden, unable to process all that was happening right now.  _Harry Potter? On the side of the Organisation? While it wasn’t hard to believe that Potter had interests in taking down Death Eaters, it was unlike him to be in contact with a_ rogue assassination association _… and to be so forward about it … it’s possible that this is someone else, Polyjuiced as Potter. But how?_

‘You can trust me, Graham,’ Harry reassured him. ‘I never meant for it to be this way. I’m going to help you all get back your lives.’

‘But why?’ Graham asked as Harry got up, about to leave.

‘You don’t deserve it,’ Harry explained curtly, and turned around; walking away into the darkening alley.

* * *

Graham was filled with an uneasiness for the rest of the evening. He walked back to the hotel slowly, thinking over everything that has happened to this point. Things just seemed to unravel, and any answers he received only turned into more questions. Half-afraid, he didn’t want to know the truth behind any of this; but he also felt compelled to uncover all this, even if it was just for his peace of mind. His curiosity always got the better of his common sense.

But, if it was something far more nefarious, horrifying … Graham wanted to get out whilst he still could. He could still live a passable life; Draco, Blaise, Theodore, and Terence were all getting along alright … it wasn’t a ideal life, but it was structured and normal; it was still  _something_.

But part of Graham would miss his personal agency. The hope that he carried with him always. And a part of him that he hated knew that he would miss the thrill; the rush of euphoric fulfillment after a successfully executed hit, the knowledge that he made a difference in the world.

But Harry Potter promised him more of a future. Graham mulled over it in his head. It was true, he supposed that Potter could grant immunity to anyone; but if he truly wanted to, he would have done it ages ago. There’s no way this is fucking legitimate.  _Fuck off Potter, I’ll never trust you_ , Graham thought to himself.

His phone pinged beside him, on the bedside table. Graham picked it up and saw that the text was from Lucian. ‘Any new findings?’

 _Harry Potter visited me today_ , Graham typed out swiftly.

 _Fuck_ , Lucian responded immediately.  _Don’t trust him. He’s involved._  Wait, when was Lucian going to tell  _him_  about this? How did Lucian already  _know_  about Potter? Graham stared distressfully at his screen. Could he not even trust his own teammate?

 _I know. And wasn’t going to_ , Graham wrote, finally.

Lucian’s side fell silent. Perhaps he had said all he needed to say. Graham put the phone back onto the table, and snuffed out the light.

He drifted off towards sleep, heavy with consternation and unfinished thoughts. For the first time since Hogwarts, Graham felt lost; disengaged and baffled. He could no longer trust what he knew to be true anymore; he could no longer control the outcome of his own life.

Man is truly never a master of his own fate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, constructive criticism is encouraged and appreciated!
> 
> Come say hi to me on tumblr: durmstranqs.tumblr.com

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Nightshade](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11847315) by [pansystan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pansystan/pseuds/pansystan)
  * [месть](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12009255) by [pansystan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pansystan/pseuds/pansystan)




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